Nexusguard has revealed in its DDoS Statistical Report for 2022 that the distributed denial of service attacks worldwide increased by 115.1% over the amount observed in 2021. The DDoS Statistical Report 2022 from Nexusguard showed that cyber attackers continued to alter their threat vectors by targeting the application platforms, online databases, and cloud-based storage systems within Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

This resulted in a significantly greater impact globally as organisations continue to move more of their workloads to the cloud. While the overall number of DDoS attacks did more than double, the maximum size of 361.9 gigabits per second (Gbps) represented a 48.2% decrease over those measured in 2021. Average attack size also shrank by 22.4%.

The DDoS threat landscape The majority of DDoS threats (85.6%) in 2022 were single-vector attacks, which is almost identical to the percentage seen in 2021. UDP- (user datagram protocol) based and TCP- (transmission control protocol) based attacks were the most popular attacks by type, accounting for 72.5% and 23.0% respectively. Other key findings include: The top three DDoS attack vectors were NTP (network time protocol) amplification, memcached, and UDP attacks; UDP-based attacks increased 121.3% year-over-year (YoY).

TCP based and other attacks also grew significantly; Amplification attacks grew by 414.6% YoY; Application attacks saw enormous growth, increasing by 718.1% YoY. Officials from Nexusguard said that although DDoS attack size dropped in 2022, they saw a significant jump in the overall number of attacks, making the need for greater awareness and vigilance more essential. Cyber attackers also continue to target critical infrastructure within ASN-level Communications Service Providers (CSPs), especially ISPs, which results in an incredibly far-reaching effect as the organisations relying on those providers are also negatively impacted.

A hub for mitigating DDoS attacks With DDoS activities on the rise in Latin America, Nexusguard will launch a new DDoS scrubbing centre in Sao Paulo, Brazil in July 2023. The new centre will provide comprehensive protection for local network operators and enterprises against DDoS attacks, mitigating the growing threat of cyberattacks in the region. The scrubbing centre will also power Nexusguard Bastions, a managed DDoS protection service designed for businesses dealing with the impacts triggered by cyberattacks or seeking to add advanced cybersecurity capabilities to their product portfolio.

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